Baseball lighting is a classic example of a lighting application prone to the aforementioned issues. Lighting baseball fields requires both illuminating the playing surface of the field (i.e. a plane) and also providing “uplighting” or “aerial lighting” (i.e. light to the 3D aerial space above and/or proximate the field). Field illumination is typically provided in accordance with at least a minimum accepted standard such as e.g. provided by Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) standard RP-6-15, and is well-known in the art. Illumination of targeted sky areas (i.e., uplighting) is just as needed, but less understood and with less regulation; U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,976,198, and 9,402,292 both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety discuss the necessity of consideration of aerial lighting levels and provide some examples of measurements of aerial lighting intensity as well as discussing some of the considerations that go into determining when uplight is needed, when glare may be perceived, how to adequately design a lighting system to provide uplight while mitigating glare, etc.
Oftentimes lighting that is otherwise satisfactory and meets illumination standards for field lighting can still pose problems for aerial lighting. As discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,976,198, and 9,402,292, lighting levels in the air may not be adequate; e.g. there may be a lack of direct illumination of the ball in the air, or insufficient contrast for playability. Or, lighting sources can cause glare and reduce playability for some of the players due to the mounting locations and aiming angles of the light sources. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1C, a ball hit high in the air on a certain trajectory 180a by the batter 112 can be interposed at 183a, directly between an outfielder 140 and an intense source of light (e.g. 110, FIG. 1A) on a pole A1, such that the player experiences glare, even though the pole layout of FIG. 1C is in accordance with industry standards for pole placement. This glare can obscure the ball and reduce the player's ability to visually track it.
Various methods to improve aerial lighting have been proposed, including providing uplighting by using uplights such as 109 FIG. 1E, mounted low on existing poles 113 or other structures, separate from lighting arrays, typically mounted on the top of those same structures (see e.g. 110, FIGS. 1A, 1E). These uplights can be purpose-built or can be conventional lights which are adapted for uplighting, separate from the field lights. This is discussed both in U.S. Pat. No. 9,402,292 and in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/282,742, filed May 20, 2014, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. However, some locations such as major league baseball fields typically do not allow the use of lighting poles or other mounting structures which are between spectators and the playing field such as would be required for low-mounted uplights. This precludes the use of low-mounted uplights for these venues and therefore requires a different approach to reducing glare for certain players and situations. Also, even in locations where lighting poles are allowed between spectators and the field, low-mounted uplights may still not be desired for aesthetic or practical reasons; for example in retrofit lighting applications, low-mounted lighting might not be adaptable to the existing poles. So methods of lighting relying on low-mounted lighting are often not desired or practical; thus, it is apparent that a lighting method that provides for improved uplighting without using low-mounted uplights is needed in the art.
Thus there is room for improvement in the art.